Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave Quantum, has criticized NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's perspective on quantum computing, calling it "completely wrong." Huang's comments had previously stirred concerns on Wall Street, leading to a sharp decline in stocks related to quantum computing, including D-Wave.
Huang mentioned that while NVIDIA could produce traditional chips to work alongside quantum computing chips, the quantum processing units required would need to be a million times more than what is currently available. He estimated that it might take 15 to 30 years to bring "very useful quantum computers" to market. This statement led to a significant drop in the stock prices of companies in the emerging quantum computing sector, with D-Wave's stock (QBTS, Financial) plummeting 36.23% to close at $6.09.
Baratz countered by stating that D-Wave's quantum computers are already being commercially used by companies like Mastercard and Japan's NTT Docomo to enhance business operations. He emphasized that the technology is available "now, today," not decades later. Despite this, D-Wave's revenue remains low, with recent quarterly sales falling 27% year-over-year to $1.9 million.
Last December, when Google announced a breakthrough in its quantum computing research, investor interest in the sector, including D-Wave, surged. D-Wave's stock soared by 178% in December, following a 185% increase the previous month, and is up about 600% over the past year, with a market cap of $1.6 billion.
Baratz acknowledged that the gate model of quantum computing might take decades to mature, but he argued that the annealing method is ready for deployment now. He stated that while Huang's comments might be somewhat accurate for gate model quantum computers, they are "100% wrong" for annealing quantum computers.
Investor interest in artificial intelligence has also propelled quantum computing, as AI has driven demand for NVIDIA's GPUs, which use traditional transistors instead of qubits. NVIDIA's market cap has grown 168% over the past year to $3.4 trillion.
Baratz claimed that D-Wave's systems could solve problems beyond the capabilities of NVIDIA's fastest systems and expressed willingness to meet with Huang to clarify these differences.
